words like physics (an unstoppable force)
by Bookdancer
Summary: Hen and Buck end up dangling over a cliff, with Buck only holding onto Hen, but she can't hold on to the cliff side forever. Buck thinks the solution is an easy one; Hen disagrees. pt. 2 of 6 of 'checking vital signs,' a 5 plus 1 series


_big news for this fic, guys: it's officially the 100th fic that i'm posting on this site. just... wow. kind of unbelievable._

_anyway, my original plan was to have this up much sooner, but the ending was giving me serious trouble and i just… couldn't write it. thankfully i got it figured out, so here we are!_

_the series summary is: 5 times Buck prioritizes his family's wellbeing over his own, and the 1 time they help him prioritize himself._

_thanks to _queenofmoons67_ (tumblr handle) for beta-ing!_

_in addition, the series and fic titles are variations of lyrics from the score's "born for this"_

_anyway, i don't own 9-1-1, and i've also cross-posted this fic to both tumblr (_bookdancerfics_) and ao3 (_Bookdancer_). i hope you all enjoy!_

checking vital signs:

words like physics (an unstoppable force)

The next time the 118 go out for "team bonding," Hen is going to automatically veto anything Buck suggests. It's the only thing, she figures, that will prevent situations like this one: where she and Buck are hanging over a cliff's edge, no footholds in reach, with their team members waiting for them back at the trail's parking lot and their phones sitting tantalizingly close by, where Hen had recommended putting them so they wouldn't accidentally drop them over the edge. Little did she know that the edge of the trail would end up dropping out from under _them_, reminiscent of the hiker who Buck still insisted had a ghost call 911. The entire situation is so ridiculous that if she didn't know any better, she'd think someone was making the whole thing up.

And yet, here they are.

She clutches Buck's hand tighter when she feels it slip a little. She has one hand on the short chain that had served as a barrier between the trail and the cliff's edge, although it hadn't done much in keeping her and Buck from sliding when the whole thing went. Now it's the only thing keeping them from dropping several hundred feet, although the loose dirt at the top doesn't give Hen any confidence in its stability, especially not since the skinny stakes it's connected to are now parallel to the earth. She doubts the stakes or chain had a good foundation to begin with, and her and Buck's weight is only making it worse. Her hand not holding the chain grips Buck's, and in return, his "free" hand grasps her wrist. Although the cliffside is close enough to Hen to press against her chest, it turns into an overhang at her ribs, and her legs and Buck's whole body swing out in empty air.

She grunts, doing her best to tighten her grip on the chain in an attempt at establishing a more secure hold. It's rusted, red dust flaking off under her palm, but it beats the alternative of a slippery new chain.

"Hen," Buck says, his voice more serious than normal.

She shakes her head. "Sorry, Buckaroo, but it's not happening."

He's silent, and then—"How's the adoption process going?"

"What?" She risks moving just to stare at him, and he stares back up at her, his lips twitching.

"What'd you think I was going to say?"

Hen huffs and tightens her grip on his hand. "Nothing, just think this is a strange place to start a game of twenty questions."

He grins, and if Hen doesn't look above his nose she can pretend that it reaches his eyes. "It's a beautiful day, Hen. Nice and peaceful, no one yelling at us to clean the truck. Even the sun is out. Where else would you want to talk about your future kid?"

Hen rests her cheek against the cliffside. It stings, and she knows that she scraped it up when they first fell, but it's a reprieve from having to hold up her head in addition to Buck's weight and hers.

"We met this little girl last week. She's eight."

"Eight, huh? Probably going through a creative phase if she's anything like Chris."

Hen manages a weak smile. "Her brother's eight, too."

For the first time since they fell, Buck frowns. "But Denny's not—"

Hen grins at him as his jaw drops.

"Twins?!"

"Yeah," Hen says. She readjusts her grip on the chain just a fraction and tightens her hold on Buck. "Crazy, right? Karen's uh…" She clears her throat, then coughs. "Karen said she was going to go visit them again today, see if they're ready to meet Denny."

"Hen, that's awesome," Buck says, and even if Hen weren't looking at him, she knows she'd hear him beaming through his voice.

"Thanks."

Buck squeezes her hand and his smile finally drops. "Do you want to try again?"

As much as Hen wishes he were still talking about adoption, or even the IVF process, she knows he's not. But she remembers the last time they tried, how Buck's grip had transferred to her shirt and their combined weight had become more centered, more focused, as he tried to climb up her to reach the cliff's edge. And even though she wants to reach her family, wants to at least go down fighting, she shakes her head. "Last time the shift in weight almost made the whole thing come down. I don't think we can risk it."

Buck nods, and they're both silent for the next couple minutes.

"Try yelling again," Hen says finally.

Buck glances up at her. "You have a good grip?"

She nods.

"Okay, then," he says, and his own hold on her hand tightens as he raises his face to the cliff's edge and screams for the rest of their team. He yells for Cap first, then Chimney, and finally Eddie, until they know for sure that no one else is in range.

"They'll be here eventually," Hen says. The thought is heavy, though, almost as heavy as her and Buck's combined weight, and she tightens her hold on the chain so much that her fingernails dig into her palm.

"But not fast enough," Buck replies, and Hen looks at him sharply. He stares up at her, a muscle in his jaw twitching. "We both know it, Hen. Just as we both know the only way out of this."

"Sure," Hen answers, ignoring what he obviously wants her to say. "Except physics doesn't _work _that way when the contact point is so unstable. Swinging you up will only drop us both."

"Hen," Buck says, and it's the same serious tone he'd used before asking her about the adoption process, back when they both knew what he was going to suggest until she shut him down.

"I mean it, Buck," she says. "So don't even think about it. I'll never forgive you otherwise."

"Henrietta," he says, and she squeezes her eyes shut, shaking her head as best she can against a cliffside.

"No," she insists.

"I'm sorry," he says.

In the next moment she can feel him prying at her fingers, but she just tightens them more, digs and digs and digs until she has rust under the nails of one hand and blood under the nails of the other.

"Hen, _please_!" he says, begging, but she won't let go of his hand and she's proved it now.

"No!" she yells at him. "So help me, Buck, we're both making it out of this or I swear I'll—"

They both freeze at the same time, staring at each other. In the distance, there's a bird squawking, the whistle of the wind over the cliff, and along the path—

"Did you hear that?" Hen whispers, and Buck nods, utterly still now.

"Hen?" The call is faint, coming from far away, and Buck's mouth hasn't moved. "Buck?"

"Here!" she yells. "Chimney, we're here!"

A couple minutes later, she hears the pounding of boots along the trail, and she and Buck scream for them until Bobby, Chim, and Eddie's faces pop over the edge.

"Hey," she manages, breathless but still smiling at them. "We'd love some help."

"No kidding," Chimney says, his eyes wide. "What even happened?"

"Tell you after," Buck calls.

Hen tightens her hold on him instinctively, feeling her hand start to slip in their combined sweat and literal blood.

"Hurrying would also be nice," she says.

Buck's own grip tightens around her wrist, and he shoots her a wry grin. "No worries, I'm not letting go."

Hen just scowls at him. "Tell that to the you of five minutes ago."

"Ok, Hen, how much longer do you think you can hold on?" Bobby asks, even as he and Chimney grab the chain to keep it from slipping.

Hen shakes her head. She's been holding on for so long, now, her whole shoulder feels numb, and she knows her grasp on the chain only lasted till now because of sheer determination and the knowledge that if she fell, then Buck would, too.

"Alright, we don't have time to get anything from the cars, then. Eddie, grab Hen's hand. Buck, do you think you can climb up?"

Above her, Eddie lays on his stomach and then gets a good grip on her arm. And below her, Buck starts climbing.

He gets about halfway up before Hen feels her hold on the chain start to go.

"Eddie!" she warns, and the chain slips through her fingers.

"_Crap_," Eddie gasps. Hen realizes that she's involuntarily closed her eyes to everything, and she opens them to find that they've dropped further, her and Buck's combined weight too much even for Eddie, who's halfway over the cliff himself now. Above him, she can just make out Chimney and Bobby. The two are piled on Eddie, apparently using their own weight to keep him from budging.

"Holy shit," Buck says, and a strangled laugh escapes Hen in response.

"Please hurry up," Chimney says, his own voice tight with fear.

"Going," Buck answers. "I'm going."

He grabs Hen's shoulder, heaving himself up just a little further until he can finally reach the hand that Bobby holds down to him. Together, with Buck scrambling for hand and footholds, and Bobby practically doing a one arm bicep curl to help pull him up, they manage to haul him onto solid ground.

"Okay," Bobby pants, still sprawled on top of Chimney and Eddie. "Now Eddie and Hen."

Hen somehow manages to hold on even tighter as they pull Eddie's torso back onto the trail, and then they keep going, dragging Hen up until they're all collapsed, panting, on solid ground.

"Oh, gosh," she groans, staring up at the sky as she lays next to her team. "If it wasn't dirt I'd kiss it."

There's silence, and then from a few feet away Buck speaks up, his voice quiet. "… yeah."

Hen blinks, turns her head until she can look Chimney in the eye, and a beat later they're all laughing.

"Don't laugh at me!" Buck says, even as he laughs with them. "Hen was the one who said it!"

Hen just shakes her head, positively cackling now, and clutches at her stomach as it starts to hurt.

"Oh, my abs," she gasps, and their laughter, which had started to die down, turns into giggles. Hen tries to take a breath in an effort to stop, but they've all stumbled right into an infectious laugh-fest, and it's hard to even breathe at this point, they're laughing so hard.

"I can't stop," Eddie groans.

"Fuck," Buck says. Someone pounds a fist against the dirt in response, and Hen stares at her team and loses herself to the bliss for a split second.

"We should get away from the edge," Bobby manages, and in the end that's what sobers them all up, silence echoing around them as sudden as they had started laughing.

Chimney moves first, getting to his knees and then his feet, and Hen grabs his hand when he offers it, letting him pull her up for the second time that day. Bobby follows, grunting as his knees crack, and normally Hen would laugh at him for it but the humor of the situation has completely fled the scene. All Hen can think about now is what almost happened, what _would _have happened if Buck had made his move a few minutes earlier, or the others had gotten there a few minutes later.

As soon as Eddie and Buck join them all on truly solid ground, Hen turns right around and pokes Buck in the chest as hard as she can. "Don't you ever do that again, you hear me?"

"What?" Chimney asks. "We were just joking around."

But Buck stares at her, his mouth turned down and his eyes serious, and then nods.

"No," Hen says, and pokes him in the chest again. "Say it out loud. Let 'em all know what you were planning on doing."

"Hen?" Eddie says cautiously. "What's wrong? You're both fine. It was just loose dirt, it wasn't Buck's fault."

"Not that," she says. "And not the joking around, either." Buck's gaze goes to the dirt, but she knuckles at his chin, forcing him to look at her again.

"I'm sorry," he says. "But there are records of people surviving twenty thousand foot plus falls, I figured as long as I landed right it'd be fine. Break my legs, sure, but we'd both live."

Someone takes a sharp breath next to her, but Hen doesn't bother to see if it was Bobby, Eddie, or Chimney. It doesn't matter.

"You don't know that." Hen grabs Buck's shoulder and gives it a small shake. "Buck, you don't know that. Even if you did everything right, you still could've died. And if you lived, what? You wanted me to be responsible for you being off team again? I don't think so. I was ready to hang there as long as it took, you understand me?"

"You couldn't have supported both of our weight that long," Buck protests.

Hen shakes her head. "What'd I say about the beat of my own drum?"

Buck finally cracks a smile at that, and Hen claps him on the shoulder in return.

"And hey, Buckaroo," Hen levels a look at him, then smiles. "You ever call me Henrietta again, you won't like what I'll do to your locker."

"Yes, ma'am," Buck laughs.

* * *

_A/N: so my initial plan was to write half of the next fic in this series before posting each installment, but this one took forever to finish so i wanted to get it out asap and the result is that i haven't started the next one yet. hopefully i'll struggle less with that one—you can expect either bobby or chimney's section, i'm not quite sure yet. which one do you guys want first—hurt/comfort, or hurt/comfort with a dollop of extra angsty angst?_

_i also have a tumblr account, bookdancerfics, so please feel free to drop by. sometimes i post writing updates_

_also, because i'm posting this 5+1 series as a *series* and not a fic, if you want to know when the next installment is posted, please follow the author (me)_

_and, finally, please let me know what you thought of this! comments feed the author_


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